Spent my days with a woman unkind, Smoked my stuff and drank all my wine.
Made up my mind to make a new start, Going To California with an aching in my heart.
Someone told me there’s a girl out there with love in her eyes and flowers in her hair.
Took my chances on a big jet plane, never let them tell you that they’re all the same.
The sea was red and the sky was grey, wondered how tomorrow could ever follow today.
The mountains and the canyons started to tremble and shake
as the children of the sun began to awake.

- Led Zeppelin [Led Zeppelin IV]

All right (my handful of) readers, listen up. I am thinking about putting up a new theme on my blog, most probably a new default theme. I love the current default but I want some change. I will leave this one up as well but I just want some new one(s) to freshen things up. But, before I go through the effort of selecting, uploading and modifying a theme, I need some opinions. Firstly, vote in this poll:

Secondly, recommend good themes. I’m not a fan of two column themes as there’s never enough space to fit everything in one sidebar. Three and four column themes are what I’m looking for. So after you’ve voted in the poll, post some suggestions in the comments section. I already have some new themes that I was trying out but be aware that the new ones don’t have a theme switcher yet. I will add that pretty soon so hold your horses for a day or two. In the meantime, enjoy the new poll and post suggestions.

Finally! After more than a month of waiting, I heard back from Columbia. I applied to the 3-2 Combined Plan Program under which you study at a liberal arts school for three years and then transfer to Columbia for two years of engineering, provided you meet all their admissions criteria. I’ve spent three years as a Physics major at Adelphi University. Not that I don’t like it here, but engineering beckons and I’m now Columbia-bound.

I got my acceptance email today. I had a feeling that the admissions decision would be sent out either today or on Monday. I had been checking my email frequently and finally when I got back from research around 5:45pm, I found the admissions decision waiting in my inbox. Having seen my fair share of rejection letters (when I applied for Fall 2004), I trained my eyes on the first sentence of the email. And I found the word “Congratulations!” right there. I let out a huge sigh of relief (I let another one out right now) and told my friends about it. A lot of other applicants from Adelphi also got their decisions today and as far as I know, everyone got in. While I still have a lot to do here at Adelphi - finish my thesis, do well in my classes this semester, get some results in my research, etc. - I can’t wait to start at Columbia. Fall 2007 starts in September. It’ll be hard, it’ll be a challenge, it’ll be demanding, but hey, I got myself into this. I’ve wanted to be an engineer for years now, and at last, I will be able to follow my dream.

I plan on pursuing Materials Science & Engineering at Columbia. I think my Physics base makes this a good choice since Materials Science involves a lot of physics and in particular, solid state physics. In order to prepare for it, I’m taking Solid State Physics as an independent study class this semester. It’s somewhat new and weird, but the theory and applications are extremely interesting. I look forward to studying it in more detail over the course of this semester and at Columbia.

All right, enough about Solid State. I know most of you are either a) bored to death or b) afraid so I’ll stop. It’s just a huge relief and I wanted to share the excitement. It’s going to be tough leaving this place. It’s given my so much. All the lovely professors and friends who aren’t going to Columbia with me - I’ll miss them all. This place has been my home for almost three years.

I’m gonna go watch 300 later tonight. I’ve been playing too much Crackdown. I should try and sleep sometime soon. Not getting enough sleep in not cool, mmkay?

Yeah, that’s right. It’s a video game. Based on the Mahabharat. Thankfully, not by an Indian developer. You know, I would really like it if Indian developers did better on an international level but at this point, they suck. They have no money and not enough experience to make quality games. We’ve done great on the mobile platform but when it comes to console or PC gaming, Indian studios have a long way to go.

So, the game is being developed by Syncere Arts from Canada. I haven’t heard of them before but I’d like to believe they’re sincere about this game. It is expected for the PC and Xbox 360 in April 2008. Long wait. But hopefully, if this game makes progress, we’ll hear more about it pretty soon.

You play Arjun and have access to dozens of weapons and “vedic powers” and can master 9 schools of power. They claim to have realistic physics and incredible depth in gameplay.

It all sounds good and I sincerely hope that the game is released and is actually as good as they say it is. Here’s the link to the game site:

Syncere Arts

WARNING: Flash-based site with background audio!

Hello invisible readers. I would like to take this opportunity to inform you that I managed to procure a can of compressed air and blasted any and all dust from within my laptop. It took a while and there was a lot of dust but it seems to have been worth it. For the past 7 hours, I have not heard the laptop fans kick-in even once. The system is running fairly cool and lag is currently not an issue. I will need to probe further by stressing the system with the help of graphics-heavy applications and games. Maybe I will finally get to play Quake 4 and complete The Chronicles of Riddick. I also need to reinstate my Audigy 2 ZS Notebook card which I took out believing it to be the cause of my problems.

I would also like to inform you of how cold it is out here in New York. Consistently below freezing.

Now that my laptop seems to running “fine,” I was able to run Yahoo! Messenger webcam/audio chat without issues. But what irony! The connection on my parents’ side decided to usurp this excellent chat. Maybe you will find this interesting: There was a lady buying an original copy of Windows Vista at the computer store where I bought the compressed air. Lunch was good.

Thank you for reading this!

Regards,

Me.